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Benjamin Rush

Yellow Fever Led Half of Philadelphians to Flee the City. Ten Percent of the Residents Still Died.

Schools closed, handshaking ceased and people wore handkerchiefs over their faces as the virus ravaged what was then the nation’s capital.
Illustration of six books on the topic of pandemics

COVID-19 and the Outbreak Narrative

Outbreak narratives from past diseases can be influential in the way we think about the COVID pandemic.

How Some Cities ‘Flattened the Curve’ During the 1918 Flu Pandemic

Social distancing isn’t a new idea—it saved thousands of American lives during the last great pandemic.
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Coronavirus: Lessons From Past Epidemics

Dr. Larry Brilliant, who helped eradicate smallpox, says past epidemics can teach us to fight coronavirus.

How the 1957 Flu Pandemic Was Stopped Early in Its Path

Dr. Maurice Hilleman caught the 1957 flu when even the military and WHO couldn't.

‘A Once-in-a-Century Pathogen’: The 1918 Pandemic & This One

What we can learn from the Spanish flu.

The Coronavirus Is No 1918 Pandemic

The differences between the global response to the Great Flu Pandemic and today’s COVID-19 outbreak could not be more striking.
Four people looking at a latrine

The Paradise of the Latrine

American toilet-building and the continuities of colonial and postcolonial development.
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How Fear of the Measles Vaccine Took Hold

We’re still dealing with the repercussions of a discredited 1998 study that sowed fear and skepticism about vaccines.

How the Horrific 1918 Flu Spread Across America

The toll of history’s worst epidemic surpasses all the military deaths in World War I and World War II combined. And it may have begun in the United States.

The Cook who Became a Pariah

New York, 1907. Mary Mallon spreads infection, unaware that her name will one day become synonymous with typhoid.
Cover of "Empire of Necessity" featuring a painting of violence being wrought on enslaved men.

The Bleached Bones of the Dead

What the modern world owes slavery. (It’s more than back wages).

Pox on Your Narrative: Writing Disease Control into Cold War History

How does the global effort to eradicate smallpox fit into the history of U.S.-Soviet relations?
John Wayne plays Genghis Khan in "The Conqueror" (1956)

The John Wayne Flop Linked to High Cancer Rates

"The Conqueror" was filmed downwind of a nuclear test site. A new documentary tells the story of the fatal film set, and the community affected.
Boy receiving measles vaccination
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The Public Health Community Must Tell the Whole Measles Story

The anti-vaccine movement has gained ground because the public health community has denied the truth about measles.
Plastic kitchen containers in red liquid.

How 3M Discovered, Then Concealed, the Dangers of Forever Chemicals

The company found its own toxic compounds in human blood—and kept selling them.
NFL bust broken at the head by Liam Eisenberg.

The Forgotten History of Head Injuries in Sports

Stephen Casper, a medical historian, argues that the danger of C.T.E. used to be widely acknowledged. How did we unlearn what we once knew?
A plantation worker harvests palm oil fruits in Riau, Indonesia.

The Story of Palm Oil Is a Story About Capitalism

Palm oil is in everything, but it is also enmeshed in global supply chains that rely on brutal working conditions and the destruction of the planet.
Postcard of Wood Island Park.

How Logan Airport Almost Destroyed East Boston

The echoes of an airport expansion, completed half a century ago, continue to harm Bostonians' health and well-being today.
Illustration of yellow fever victims in pain on park bench while another man flees

How Yellow Fever Intensified Racial Inequality in 19th-Century New Orleans

A new book explores how immunity to the disease created opportunities for white, but not Black, people.
Moscow COVID-19 vaccination center
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The U.S. and Russia Could Join Forces to Get People Vaccinated. They Did Before.

The forgotten history of Soviet-American vaccine diplomacy.
Armistice Day celebration with a large crowd of people

People Gave Up on Flu Pandemic Measures a Century Ago When They Tired of Them – And Paid a Price

At the first hint the virus was receding, people pushed to get life back to normal. Unfortunately another surge of the disease followed.
Monument of a fist holding a broken shackle

Atlantic Slavery: An Eternal War

Julia Gaffield reviews two books that discuss the transatlantic slave trade.

Flu Fallout

A majority of the estimated 675,000 American deaths from the influenza pandemic of 1918–19 occurred during the second wave.
A map of the origins of illnesses across the world.

The Name Blame Game

A history of inflammatory illness epithets.
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Polio on Trial

What if there is a vaccine, but not everyone gets it? Exploring the lessons of the polio vaccine's shortcomings as we address a new public health crisis today.
Illustration of body being loaded on to a cart

Pandemic Syllabus

Disease has never been merely a biological phenomenon. Instead, all illnesses—including COVID-19—are social problems for humans to solve.

How Racism Is Shaping the Coronavirus Pandemic

For hundreds of years, false theories of “innate difference and deficit in black bodies” have shaped American responses to disease.

Typhoid Mary Was a Maligned Immigrant Who Got a Bum Rap

Now, she's become hashtag shorthand for people who defy social distancing orders.

Numbering the Dead

A brief history of death tolls.

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